


Doctor Zombie

by TintedPink



Series: 13 Days of Halloween 2018 [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, I mean it's kinda gross, Inspired by iZombie (TV), M/M, Stephen eats brains, Tony isn't a billionaire, Tony works in R&D, but just because it's brains, but not in a gross way, he's not pulling them out of anyone's head or anything, iZombie!AU, zombie!Stephen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TintedPink/pseuds/TintedPink
Summary: Stephen is having a pretty bad day, and then Tony almost eats his brain soup.





	Doctor Zombie

**Author's Note:**

> [13 Days of Halloween](https://iwritefanficsometimes.tumblr.com/post/179157044319/13-days-of-halloween-writing-challenge) \- Day 5: Soup/“This is so good, what’s in it?” “You Don’t Want to Know”  
>  For those unfamiliar with iZombie, in this universe, Stephen (a doctor) is a zombie. He can control his crazy zombie side by eating brains, but he can’t exactly keep brains in the refrigerator, so he usually cooks his meals (with brains in them) in advance, so nothing looks conspicuous. In this world, Wong and Karl both know and are helping him keep the secret. Wong works with Stephen and Karl is his roommate. No magic, no powers, no Iron Man suit. Zombies hair and skin all become super pale/white so that has to be curtailed with dyes and spray tans. Also, I headcanon Tony with ADD, which can persist into adulthood for some people, and that kind of shows up here if you know what to look for. (PS: I seriously want to continue this as a long fic, and if that’s something you’re into, please let me know.)

For Stephen today was shaping up to be an all-around bad day. His hair dye had washed out near his temples, his spray tan was almost non-existent, and damn it, he was hungry, starving, but Tony got here early, and Stephen hadn’t had time to eat between getting home from the morgue and Tony showing up. He knew he should have brought his lunch to work. Wong was going to give him an earful if he killed anyone again.

“Hey, Stephen, I’m gonna poke around a bit, if that’s alright with you?”

Tony had called once Stephen had left him to finish getting dressed. Stephen contemplated trying to redye his hair, but it would take too long and probably end up with his bathroom, his clothes and far too much of his skin covered in hair dye. At least his eyebrows had taken…

As he was brushing at the dyed eyebrow hairs he called back to Tony, “Sure, do whatever. I have nothing to hide.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. He had something to hide in his fridge, that thing being a butternut squash and brain soup he’d made the night before, but the brain wasn’t giving him any horrendous flashbacks, or any particularly strange personality traits, and as far as Stephen was concerned, that was a win.

“Cool!” Tony called loud enough for Stephen to hear. He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Tony had made a very positive comment about his new “salt and pepper” look, and even Stephen had to admit it didn’t look that bad, it was just suspicious to go from having no gray hairs to white streaks of hair on the side of his head, but he was working with it. He slicked it back to make it as interesting as possible without drawing too much attention to it, and after far too much time spent on it, he left the bathroom, one shoe still untied to see what Tony had done to his extensive music collection.

When he got to the living room though, Tony was nowhere to be found. “Tony?” He called, and Stephen felt his heart stop when he heard banging in the kitchen. Oh shit.

“Hey, in here. I’m sorry, I got kind of hungry and started rummaging through your kitchen. I know it’s rude. I’ll pay you back, I swear. I have low impulse control. I’m sorry.”

Stephen would have liked to say that he kept his composure. Stephen would have liked to say that he walked in like nothing was wrong and calmly told Tony not to eat anything. Stephen would have liked a lot of things that he wasn’t getting, because he slammed into the kitchen like demon into hell, and he had absolutely no precedent for how to deal with a human that didn’t know he was a zombie rummaging through his kitchen. Possibly his fridge. Possible the container of brain and butternut squash soup that looked deceivingly normal with how well Stephen had cooked the brain. This could really only go a few ways, and none of them were good. At the very least he’d have to explain why a decently paid medical examiner was so stingy about his food.

Stephen… was too late. Tony already had a glass leftover container of soup in Stephen’s microwave and two bowls dug out of his cabinets. Stephen had absolutely no idea how to do this calmly, so he winged it.

“Are we not going to dinner?” He asked, trying to be casual about the whole thing and hopefully succeeding. Tony gave him a funny look and crinkled one side of a mouth in a way that told him he wasn’t succeeding.

“No, we are. Sorry, I didn’t know how long you were gonna be.” He looked at the plates, then the microwave, and then back at Stephen again. “Um, now that I’m taking the time to think about it, this is really rude.”

“Kind of,” Stephen said, not wanting to call it out, but knowing that not addressing the behavior could lead to more of it in the future, that possibly Stephen wouldn’t be able to stop. Stephen would just never leave Tony unattended at his apartment. Ever.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” He stopped the microwave, the soup already nearly finished warming up, and Stephen could smell it from across the kitchen. It was heavenly, and Stephen was starving. He closed his eyes to try and regain his composure, but he was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to be able to make it through dinner without leaving early or making Karl sneak him something through the bathroom window, which he’d already promised he wasn’t doing more than once, so Stephen was trying to save it for an emergency. “Like I said, low impulse control. I’m aware of it, but… that kind of doesn’t stop me.” He went to pull out the container only to find it blazing hot, which was why Stephen didn’t usually warm it up in the glass container. “Shit, ouch.” He pulled his hands back, waving them back and forth like it might dissipate the pain.

Stephen sighed, mostly out of relief, but also a little bit from exasperation. “Come here,” He said, grabbing one of Tony’s wrists and leading him to the sink. He turned on the cold tap and stuck Tony’s hands under the faucet. “Stay here, I’m gonna put some stuff away, and then we can go to dinner, and eat food cooked by a professional, not a man who spends his day working with dead bodies and whose sense of smell is so dead that soup is probably not going to be any good to you.”

“Well, it smells good,” Tony mumbled, keeping his hands obediently under the water just long enough for Stephen to scoop out a few chunks of too-hot brains with his bare fingers and eat them while he replaced the lid on the container. It wasn’t much but it would hold him over until dinner ended. “What’s in it, anyway?”

“You don’t want to know,” Stephen mumbled under his breath, and when Tony made an inquisitive noise he said a little louder, “It’s just butternut squash and… yeah, I don’t remember. I found the recipe on Pinterest. I can send it to you.”

“That sounds great, except I don’t cook. I can sometimes manage an omelet, but not consistently.” He pulled his hands out of the water and shook them again, splattering Stephen and the entire kitchen with water. “Ow, crap. That’s gonna hurt at work tomorrow.” He said, looking down at his hands.

“For someone who works in R&D, you’re terrible at observing safety protocols,” Stephen said as he placed the too hot container in a drafty cool part of the kitchen. It was too hot to put in the fridge, and he’d already eaten most of the good stuff out of it anyway, so if it spoiled Stephen wasn’t worried. The soup was just a vessel for the brains he needed to keep from going full-on zombie.

“I’ve heard that before.” He smirked, then winced as he tried to move his fingers. “It happens a lot. If I wanted I could do a whole, ‘do you wanna know how I got these scars?’ routine, and it wouldn’t be pretty.” He gestured down his body, and Stephen winced internally.

“Your Joker impression is spot on.” He laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’ve been practicing. It used to freak out my roommate in college if I did it while he was in the shower, or asleep, or really anytime when I involved an airhorn… Good times.” He grinned and Stephen smiled back at him.

“Dinner, then?”

“Yeah, let's go. I’m sorry again, about that.”

“Don’t worry. I forgive you.” He had to bite back his impulse to say “it’s okay” because it really wasn’t and if it happened again it could lead to awkward conversations at the very least and at the worst… Tony could out Stephen to the whole world. That would be very bad.

“Cool. Great. Good. Let's go and pretend this didn’t happen.” He put his arm out for Stephen to take, and Stephen rolled his eyes but took it anyway, letting Tony lead him out of his own apartment to a dinner that, barring the other incidents, would hopefully be the thing that turned his day around.

“I’m serious, I really like the salt and pepper thing. It’s very Daddy.”

Stephen winced but started laughing, “Did you just-“

“All the kids say it, Stephen, live a little.”

“Tony, you’re barely thirty.”

“And you’re barely thirty-one, but your new hair is still Daddy as hell.”

“It was a problem with the dye.” He admitted, not meeting Tony’s eyes.

“Well, it looks good.” Tony squeezed Stephen’s arm as he finished looking at the apartment door behind him. “Really.”

Tony’s voice is so earnest that Stephen has to smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Tony smiled back and for a moment they’re just standing there, smiling at each other like idiots, until Tony seems to jolt out of it and say, “Dinner?”

“Yeah, dinner.”

And Stephen actually has a nice time.

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on [Tumblr](https://iwritefanficsometimes.tumblr.com/post/179395961134/day-5-doctor-zombie-13-days-of-halloween)(coming soon)  
> [Follow me](https://iwritefanficsometimes.tumblr.com) there for more... whatever? lol


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